


Maniac

by TheBlackCatPounce



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Break Up, Complete, Drama, Drunkenness, Inspired by a Conan Gray Song, Love, M/M, Maniac, Memories, One Shot, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23766310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlackCatPounce/pseuds/TheBlackCatPounce
Summary: It's been months and Harry still can't get over his first love. One drunken night, he flicks between past and present and tries to remember what it was really like. Turns out, Draco wasn't always perfect and maybe they weren't really made for each other. Sometimes you deserve more. One-shot AU about trying to fall out of love with the person you thought was the one.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Maniac

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song Maniac and the the guy who broke my heart

"Don't look at him," Hermione hissed at Harry. They were at their usual table at their usual pub. It was sometime late in the night of Friday or early in the morning of Saturday, Harry wasn't sure. The lights were blurry, softened by the beers and the shots coursing through his veins. He listened to Hermione and dutifully looked away, but it didn't really matter. He didn't need to be looking at Draco to feel him. He didn't need to see Draco leaning against the wooden counter laughing with his friends. They were all there, his little gang.

  
The problem was that anywhere Harry looked, Draco was still in his head. The way he smiled when it was just the two of them. Draco had almost perfect teeth-almost. There was a tiny chip on his top front left tooth and it was imperceptible unless you were close enough to taste his breath, to feel his heart beating. That smile was the one that Harry couldn't erase from his mind, the one that kept him awake into the late hours of the night. Hermione was chattering about something in one of her uni classes and Ron was listening intently. Meanwhile, Harry was drifting into somewhere that wasn't the pub. His memories haunted him, the way Draco laughed and how his hair was nearly translucent.

  
"Oi, Potter," the voice Harry most hated and most loved yelled from across the room, "Stare much?" Uproarious laughter followed, of course. Draco's gang would never let him down. Never leave him hanging the way Draco had left Harry hanging. Harry got up, stumbling toward the bar. Hermione tried to grasp his hand but he was already gone, ordering another gin and tonic while he saw Draco get served another whiskey. Harry wanted to scream out loud, "He doesn't even like whiskey! He's a liar!" But he kept his mouth shut and returned to the table.

  
Hermione sighed, "Harry, you really need to move on." Harry nodded, "Of course, yeah. I'm almost over it, honestly." Maybe he was the liar… to tell the truth he was waiting for the moment when Draco called him and said he regretted it. He wanted to go back to the way it was before, the summer picnics in the park. He wanted to relive the nights when they binge watched cooking shows and drank wine and how they would smoke until they giggled endlessly in a blanket fort. He wanted to go back to the way it was before, all the magic they had. Now it was just tragic and over.

  
It had been three months and it still hurt like the first day after the breakup. At month one, Draco had called Harry in tears and Harry had rushed over and taken care of his drunk ex-boyfriend and held him. In the morning, Draco wouldn't even look at him and that hurt the worst of all. Harry had lost count of the mornings they had woken up together before Draco ended it. How they had slowly made their way out of bed to the kitchen. He missed the way Draco's pajama bottoms would hang low across his hips and the way the muscles of his back looked as he made eggs. Harry would make the coffee and they would sit across the table from each other in contented silence while they ate. Now, Harry woke up too late and wished he could go back to sleep even before his eyes were open. He missed the feeling of the weight of Draco's hand in his and those grey eyes sparking up his nights.

  
"Right then, we should probably be leaving, eh?" Ron declared to his two best friends. Hermione was quick to agree, casting a worried glance over at Harry. Harry nodded as well, but the world was swimming. He didn’t remember getting home, only that he did. He made it back to his flat and collapsed on the couch, in tears. How could he ever move on from the person he had loved so intensely? And why was he so broken that he couldn’t move on from the person who had shattered his heart into a million pieces? He had a good job and good friends and yet, Draco still consumed his thoughts.

  
He floated there, on his couch, into the memories and out of reality. The first night they had met, smiling from across the same pub they had been in tonight. Draco looked like something Harry wanted in his life. He was all angles and sharp edges and he had tasted like mint that night from a mojito and vaguely of cigarettes. It was like pieces falling into place as they went home together. Their first date was at an out-of-the-way art gallery and Draco bought Harry a painting. Then they went for ice cream. Harry ordered chocolate and Draco ordered mint chip but the flavors mixed together when they kissed anyway.

  
Harry remembered the night when he finally told Draco about his childhood, how he had grown up always scared. They were sitting on the roof, watching the sun rise. Draco had understood. He had had parents, but his father was the worst type, demanding and abusive. So they had understood each other. Plus, they didn’t need family anymore anyways, they had had each other. The sun had risen and they were together and that was enough.

  
When Draco had finally walked out for reasons unexplained, Harry had been devastated. That was the thing about falling in love for the first time. He had fallen so quickly and so completely that he had stopped imagining a future without Draco until he had been shoved onto the rocks of reality. Draco walked out the door and he didn’t walk back in. So now Harry was drunk on his couch staring at his phone and wishing for it to ring.

  
First love is a difficult thing, you start to idealize the person and the future that you may have. You think that this is really it… the person you’re going to marry and you start to imagine what your kids might look like. You imagine all the Sunday mornings and the trips you’ll take. But it’s just a fantasy and then it ends. Somehow, it stays with you in the million pieces of your heart scattered across your floor and your city. Harry started walking two blocks out of his way so he didn’t have to go to the same bakery that he had Draco had gone to together. He returned the painting Draco had given him to the artist- free of charge and sent Draco’s clothes back through the post.

  
Harry forced himself off the couch and into his bathroom. He washed his face from the tears and changed into more comfortable clothes. Then he sat in the tub and tried to reason with himself. Draco wasn’t all that. Because hidden in between the perfect train rides to dates downtown was the screaming. The anger. Draco saying that Harry didn’t get what it was like to try to live up to his parent’s legacy. They hadn’t spoken for two days after that. There was also the time that Harry had told Draco that his friends were shite and Draco had ignored his calls for the rest of the day.

  
Harry remembered collapsing onto a park bench, beer dulling the sensations as he left a party without Draco after another argument about his friends and the fact that they overlooked Harry as Draco’s orphan charity case, unworthy of being spoken to. The sleepless nights while he waited for Draco to respond to his message as he tried to process the death of Cedric. But Draco was at the club and couldn’t be bothered.

  
As the alcohol began to fade from his system, Harry forced himself to remember that it wasn’t always good and it wasn’t always easy. The what-ifs were poison that made him forget the roughest times. Draco may have given him the best moments of his life, but he also caused some of the worst days and nights.

  
So then his phone began to buzz, Harry could barely believe it. There was the name he had been waiting to return to the screen for months. He picked it up. Draco was sloshed, it was five in the morning. “I miss you. I’m outside your door.” Harry hung up and rushed to the front door. There he was, the man he actually had believed was going to be the love of his life. Something snapped in him, though. All those nights of waiting for an apology, waiting for a sign. Now he actually was starting to move on and of course, Draco couldn’t have that. People like him always wanted back the things they gave away.

  
“I miss you,” Draco confessed. His shirt was untucked and his tie was loose and he still looked perfect. But Harry felt the truth. He was lonely and broken. All that loneliness would come out later in vicious insults and wry comments. Harry didn’t want that anymore. No matter how good the good times were, they couldn’t make up for the lows. Draco had some monopoly on his feelings that was far too damaging.

  
Looking into those grey eyes that he had fallen in love with, Harry made a decision. “Go home, Draco. Tell your friends that I’m crazy. I know what you’ve been saying about me and now you’re calling me up and I deserve more. I deserve someone that’s going to stay and keep the promise no matter what, not say that they dated me for laughs. I miss you, too. That’s not enough, though. You can’t be there for me the way I need you to be.” It broke his heart and it didn’t make all the sense in the world, but it felt right. Draco crumpled in front of him. He looked the way Harry felt. Harry could feel all his love rushing back so he took one last look at Draco and said, “Go home.”

  
He closed the door and leaned his head against it. “I love you,” he whispered. And maybe part of him would always love Draco. But the truth was the love wasn’t always enough. He needed someone who was going to be there for him, even when it was hard. He needed someone who was going to deal with the bad nights and leave the party at the same time. He needed more.


End file.
